


fallout

by officialmarsrover



Category: The West Wing
Genre: (i guess???), ??? tags are hard anyways ill add more as they become relevant, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Major Character Injury, Trauma, i update this like. once every 18 years lmao, please see the notes for more specific warnings, rosslyn arc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-08-21 17:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8254960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/officialmarsrover/pseuds/officialmarsrover
Summary: a psychological aftermath.





	1. sam

**Author's Note:**

> so this is pretty much just a series of very short unrelated character-study-like things that all revolve around the rosslyn storyline. there will likely be a chapter for each character but planning is not my strong suit so. we will see lmao  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for descriptions of violence/major injury, medical procedures and mild emetophobia

the moment he realized josh had been shot, he did not cry.

he chalked it up to shock; seeing josh bleeding out on the ground had felt like the bullet had hit him as well. he didn't cry as he, toby, and cj piled into the ambulance (he tried not to think about how bad it must have been, if the emts didn't waste any time to try to shoo them away). when he collapsed into the uncomfortably hard waiting room chair, he didn't feel more than a numb sense of fear and denial.

it wasn't like the rest of them hadn't reacted the same way. despite donna's immediate reaction to what had happened, she immediately settled into a state much like the rest of them - overly calm and collected, trying her best not to visibly react to the uncertainty of the president's situation and their friend's slim chances of survival.

later, in the ninth hour of surgery, donna goes to see josh through the OR window. she comes back looking pale and shaky, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. cj hands her a stick of gum and no one comments.

they try not to talk too much about josh. abbey updates them once in a while, using factual, medical language that they all know is an attempt to distance herself and keep it together. the president, her husband, is fine, but josh isn't. he isn't out of the woods by any means. if anything, he's going farther in.

they hold it together for fourteen hours. none of them sleep, and not just because of the small national crisis. they're all exhausted, tired to the bone, but they don't want to fall asleep and wake up to find out that josh was - gone.

at 7:34 am, an exhausted nurse comes in to tell them that mr. lyman - _josh_ \- had been stabilized. he was off bypass, and the major surgery was near conclusion (which likely means that they're stitching up the hole in his chest, but she tactfully doesn't say that).

it feels like the air is rushed back into the room, and they can all take a breath without the world falling apart. josh is far from okay, but he's alive. and that is enough for right now.

sam stands up, his legs shaky from two - four? - hours of sitting down. he isn't really sure where he's going, now, but he finds himself opening the door of josh's room in the icu.

he sees him and he understands why donna threw up.

josh is pale and his face hasn't been shaved since the shooting, which, sam realizes with a start, had been almost a day ago. a full day. he looks thin, almost lifeless.

in short, he looks like shit.

sam sinks into a chair, watches his chest rise and fall and tries not to think about anything else.

soon, though, he can't look anymore, because he can't shake the thought that it isn't josh. because he is too pale, too still, and he looks too close to death even though the steady beeping of the monitors prove him wrong.

he places a hand on josh's forearm, tentatively, because part of him needs to know that he's actually here and real and alive. holding his hand has too much finality to it, because sam hasn't held josh's hand in years and he needs to pretend that this isn't as big of a deal as it is. which he knows is ridiculous.

he isn't sure how long he stays before a nurse gently but firmly kicks him out, and sam hates that in a way he's grateful to leave, because seeing josh so lifeless is almost too much for him to handle.

he doesn't go back into the waiting room. he can't face them, not right now. he just unceremoniously slides to the ground, staring at the wall across from him. it's plain and white, and it seems almost ironic in its inanimation.

sam feels someone open the door, but he doesn't react in time to compose himself. he can tell by the way the person moves and the light scent from her hair as she sits down that it's donna.

she doesn't say anything. she just sits with him, taking his hand, and it suddenly sinks in that josh, his best friend, his brother, josh, had almost died. he had been shot in the chest, and it was a miracle he survived at all.

the thought knocks the wind out of him. it isn't like he hadn't known, intellectually. josh was shot in the chest, and a gunshot wound that close to your heart is so commonly fatal. he just hadn't allowed himself to think about it, to even consider the possibility that had the bullet been a centimeter closer to his heart he would have been gone hours ago, until he's out of danger.

he doesn't cry, exactly. he'd expected he would completely shatter, and in all honesty, he probably will, soon, when the rest of the events of the night catch up with him, because even though he isn't lying in that hospital bed, the fact remains that he was shot at too.

no. he just feels a hot, prickly stinging behind his eyes as he starts to shake.  
donna takes in a deep, uneven breath, and it occurs to sam that she's crying, too.

"he's all right," donna whispers finally, and he thinks she's trying to convince herself as much as him. "he's all right. he's all right."

"yeah." he can't manage any more than that, doesn't have the energy or the heart to argue that josh is far from all right, in both body and mind, and so are they. but he holds his tongue, partially because the exhaustion is catching up to him and it seems like too much effort to even open his mouth.

"do you need anything?" donna's voice is gentle, because everything about donna is gentle, even right now, apparently.

"i think i need to be alone right now," he responds, feeling very guilty. she smiles slightly at him and gets up, slipping back into the room.

sam takes a deep breath, trying to steady himself. his hands are shaking, so hard he can't seem to be able to loosen the tie around his neck. his eyes sting and he really, really, really wants to cry, again, but it doesn't seem right. josh is safe, and it's certainly nothing to cry about.

he stares at his hands and wills them to still, to be calm and steady, like how he needs to be right now. but it seems that now he's noticed, they shake harder.

sam shoves his hands into his pocket and goes back inside. he can't break quite yet.


	2. cj

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for somewhat graphic descriptions of blood/shootings

cj is a professional woman.

to be good at her job, she has to be good at compartmentalization. there are times when she can be human, be funny or sad or angry, and there are times when she needs to shut everything down and simply relay the facts.

right now, she cannot be the woman who just got shot at and came out with a minor concussion and the blood of one of her closest friends soaking through her clothes.

(she calls him joshua lyman, or mr. lyman, or simply the deputy chief of staff, when she talks about him in her briefings. she would like to say that it's entirely for the sake of professionalism, but the truth is that if she has to get up in front of the white house press corps and say that josh, their josh, is in his fourth hour of surgery and his condition is not improving, there is no way she'll make it out of there without losing every shred of composure she has.)

no. right now, she has to be press secretary. she has to be the calm, stoic face the press - and the country - turns to for information, and she thanks everything that technology hasn't advanced quite enough for the cameras to capture the paleness in her face and the shaking in her hands in all their shameful glory.

(she hears a reporter describe her as "shaken" and cj almost laughs. she allows herself a moment of bitterness towards the woman, who has likely never experienced in her life anything like what cj has been through in the past few hours, before she steadies herself and remembers that the reporter is likely just as confused and terrified as cj herself is.)

she understands. she knows why they didn't put the deputy on duty, even just for a few hours; she knows that the country needs a face they can recognize and trust right now. cj can't help but think, selfishly, that maybe it wasn't so good for her, because _goddamnit_ , she was shot at too. she didn't come out of it with a bullet under her skin, but she can't concentrate for shit or hear the press shouting questions at her without feeling like there's a knife inside her brain. she can still feel (and _smell_ ) josh's blood coating her fingers, see the look in his eyes when she finally stumbled over to the very obvious puddle of red under him.

for a split second, she is slightly angry that no one is questioning whether she shouldn't be at home or in an emergency room, before she feels what she can only melodramatically describe as a crushing weight of guilt.

because they don't even know if josh is going to live yet. although no one's said it, the chances of survival after having been shot through both your lung and a major artery are slim. logically, cj knows that there is a greater chance than she wants to consider that josh will be dead by noon.

she doesn't allow herself to dwell on it, though, because she knows her limits. there is only so much she can take, and _josh_ and _dead_ in the same sentence is not something she can handle. not right now.

so she takes a deep breath, swipes a hand under her eyes, and walks into her eighth press briefing of the night.

cj is a professional woman. she won't lose this, too, not now.

**Author's Note:**

> ??? what is this ??? we just don't know  
>  (there will be a more coherent end note here at some point. probably. maybe)


End file.
